• sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    4 hours ago

    Every outlet that you are seeing run a headline about the Steam Controller being in someway ‘controversial’ or ‘has a problem’ or ‘may be divisive’ …

    I contend that this is an anti-marketing campaign, being run by basically, potentially, the entire AAA gaming industry that isn’t Valve.

    Nearly every major AAA game company is currently imploding right now.

    Except Valve.

    Because Valve is privately held and owned, it doesn’t have a board of investors to answer to, to constantly juice next quarter profits for.

    It doesn’t have a gaggle of people who sit on multiple corporate boards simultaneously, who sit on the boards of industry lobbying groups, who sit on the boards of astroturfed ‘consumer rights’ groups.

    These people all know each other, or in some cases literally are the same people.

    I of course cannot prove this conclusively, but just… look around.

    This is nuts, the number of media outlets going with a non positive angle, in the headline… of a product launch.

    Also consider that many of Valve’s direct competition has extensive, direct ties to the AI bubble insano-mania, both hardware and software companies.

    … Its not normal to have so many different outlets have such a standardized general framing of … a video game controller launch.

    This is what a retired ex corpo ex MSFT employee such as myself would describe as sus.

    • Grimy@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      No. Valve spends a shit load on marketing and almost none of the articles over the past few days have been anywhere near negative.

      100$ for a controller is fucking stupid. If valve wasn’t paying everyone off, they would be getting ripped a new one.

      • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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        3 hours ago

        I’m not getting paid by Valve, in fact I will be giving them money for this controller as soon as possible. If you only play controller games then yeah, €99 for a controller with just 2 extra buttons and capacitive gyro might be too much (although, the capacitive gyro and extra buttons alone justify the price for me). But no other controller can be used to play mouse games comfortably. The trackpads might not be for you, but to claim they’re not worth it is naive at best, as they’re the ONLY good solution for this problem and no one else is doing them to be able to say “this other controller does the same and is cheaper”.

        • Grimy@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          Ya and no one thinks those are fairly priced. Xbox and Nintendo isn’t the bar.

          • village604@adultswim.fan
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            5 hours ago

            The fact is that the Steam controller is way more feature rich than other controllers from major brands in the same price point. The price tag actually makes sense vs what Nintendo and Microsoft charge for inferior hardware.

            • Grimy@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              Jesus bootlicking Christ. I literally just said Idgaf if it’s worth it compared to micro$oft. They aren’t the fucking bar.

              It’s as overpriced as the joycons. Two 50 cent mouse pads don’t add enough value to make up the difference. Would you pay the same price for a Microsoft controller if it had little pads?

              Is this thing worth 5 third party controllers? Are three of these worth a steam deck?

              Fucking Gaben simp squad. Can’t think the moment there’s a valve logo near something.

              I actually hope you morons buy as many as you can of these. Hopefully, they use the ridiculous profits from it to offset and lower the cost of the actually interesting products that are coming.

              • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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                2 hours ago

                Is this thing worth 5 third party controllers?

                If you’re gaming on $20 controllers no wonder you don’t see the appeal here, it’s like someone saying “is an Nvidia 5080 really worth 5 Nvidia 3050s?”, completely different audiences.

                Good controllers don’t sell cheaper than half the price of a steam controller, so you wouldn’t even be able to buy 2 controllers for the price of this. And there are plenty of controllers a lot more expensive than this that offer no benefits. Even the ones that cost half are, IMO, less than half as feature-rich, so yeah, definitely worth 2 Sony/Xbox/8BitDo controllers.

                Are three of these worth a steam deck?

                No, because the Steam Deck doesn’t cost 300, only the model they were burning stock did for a little while (that’s like saying the OG steam controller used to cost $5), and that model is no longer being made, so the question is are 6 of this worth a steam deck? But that is also kinda moot since it’s out of stock and might increase in price because of the ram shortage.

              • ericwdhs@discuss.online
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                4 hours ago

                Would you pay the same price for a Microsoft controller if it had little pads?

                If it had all the other little things like TMR sticks, repair-friendly construction, really deep configuration, and other hardware in the family having a track record of good software support, unironically yes. As much as I hate Microsoft, their accessibility controller was a big win.

                Also, it’s not simping to genuinely like a company’s products after using a lot of them.

                • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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                  3 hours ago

                  Exactly this, the fact that Valve makes the controller is mostly irrelevant to me (the only difference is that I trust Valve to deliver on their promises, other manufacturers I might wait a few months for reviews, and especially to see it it’s compatible with Linux and SteamInput). But if Microsoft or Sony, or 8BitDo had released a controller with these features for €99 I would have brought it too.

                • village604@adultswim.fan
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                  4 hours ago

                  Especially if it lasts like the first. I have 4x dead Xbox one controllers, and a working steam controller that’s several years older than all of them.

              • village604@adultswim.fan
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                4 hours ago

                Maybe you should avoid gaming communities if discussions about gaming hardware triggers you this hard.